Forgotten Stars : after Lost Stars by Claudia Grey
by Crawf80321
Summary: Hello! This is my first ever fic, and it follows Ciena after the end of Lost Stars. I am new to this whole fic thing, so please drop a comment or come say hi on tumblr amelnovitsky, I would love to chat with you!
1. Chapter 1

Ciena Ree had realized she was looking at her death for the second time.

The first time she looked death in the eye was on the Inflictor. She had watched the dunes of Jakku rise in the view screen from her captain's chair and thought that even this nowhere planet was beautiful in its desolation. The Dunes were larger than even the mountains of Jelucan, sand was blowing off their arches like snow would be blown from the peaks of Jelucan after she and Thane had rushed by in the V - 171. That fleeting image was enough to break her from the numbness that had overtaken her as she had ordered the evacuation of the Inflictor. Ciena had felt something then and she thought maybe it was the feeling all living things felt when realized death was coming for them, the spark of her own life somewhere deep inside her barely mended body—and she had accepted that life and the death that was to come.

But she lived.

The second time had been in her prison on Jakku, after the resistance had abandoned the outpost without freeing her.

She had been on Jakku awaiting trial for more than a year then. It seemed that The Republic—as the Resistance now referred to themselves—had more important things to do than collect prisoners from the outer rim for trial. Another glaring example of their inefficiencies, the Empire would have never allowed such a high ranking enemy to be ignored for so long. Ciena had a feeling that Thane had tried to prevent her trial from moving forward so that he could interfere. He still thought he could negotiate a lighter sentence for her, that he was destined to save her from consequences of her own making. Ciena found she could not speak with him about what was going to happen. She would plead guilty, her honor would allow no less. She had served the Empire willingly and she knew of their horrors. Ciena thought that was even more damning than those who served with the fervor and dedication of true patriotism. She had known it was wrong, and she had continued-she deserved whatever fate the Rebel Alliance dealt.

Thane had never had the ability separate his emotions from his duties, one of the reasons he had been relegated to elite flight and not a command posting after their time at the Academy. He didn't believe that she was guilty, even when that guilt tore her apart every day. Thane could only see her first waver honor as a crutch, he thought she used it as an excuse. He didn't understand that it was the only thing holding her fractured soul together. It was as if the sound in her abdomen had poisoned her very soul, the pain clawing up through her chest and into her limbs during the long hours spent reflecting. But Thane had left, he had been an elite flight pilot for a reason. He was valuable to the Rebel Alliance, and though he might have had a weakness when it came to her sentencing, she was sure he would serve their New Republic well.

The small squad of fighters still based at the outpost on Jakku had taken off in a particularly cold Jakku night, the cold seeping into her cell off the main hangar, the force field covering her doorway did nothing to insulate her her from the desert air. The X wings were rushing to a battle only a quick hyperspace jump away. Ciena had thought nothing of it besides a passing moment of irritation at how unorganized their mobilization was. Even from her cell down the hall from their hangar she could hear shouting and orders being repeated, nothing like the efficiency she had demanded during her time in command with the Empire. The resistance liked to think that giving freedom to its "volunteer" army made them superior to the Empire, but Ciena knew it just made more of them dead.

So she had tried to go to sleep, trying to keep her mind from seeing the stormtroopers and officers that would be dead by her captors hands. Ciena felt the guilt that always pressed on her shoulders most when they were mobilizing. She saw the faces of officers she had grav ball with, and the medical officers who had made small talk with her during her days of bacta treatment after Endor. Every time she found herself relaxing in her captivity, enjoying the small freedoms provided to her she remembered their faces. Ciena tried not to think about the death that was coming, because she couldn't help but mourn how fewer X wings always returned, and the volunteers seemed to be younger every time the base was sent reinforcements.

Ciena woke to silence.

Her cell was off the main hangar, and no matter what time in the cycle it was there had always been someone tooling with a damaged transport or repairing a droid. It took constant maintenance to keep their spacecraft maintained with the fine sands of Jakku wearing down every fragile component, but not a single person moved in the Hangar. When evening fell and the temperature dropped again Ciena realized that the hangar door was open, whoever had last exited didn't even try to close it, the doors fully exposing her to the cool night air of the desert.

On the third day she ran out of water.

She had some water on hand, which had lasted her the first day. Ciena realized how foolish it had been to continue consuming it as she had been, but she still hadn't realized that the Rebel fighters would just... leave her. Truth be told it hadn't even crossed her mind. She was too valuable a prisoner, and it also didn't seem to be the way of the rebellion. They prided themselves on their justice, their mercy. Were they really the type of people who would leave her to die of exposure?

By the second day Ciena had felt the arid air seep all the moisture from her body. Something that had seemed so inconsequential after the years living in the endless order and regulation of a star destroyer was what would determine whether she lived our died. She had always been posted to large ships, where each officer's bodily needs were prescribed by and consumed at the hand of a medical droid to be consumed. She hadn't even thought about how necessary water was to her immediate survival since her days in the Academy on Coruscant. Now it would be her death.

Ciena knew she was slipping, she could feel the war vibration of her body that meant she was alive begin to pick up, as if it should put the most effort into living in the last few moments before death. She idly thought about how it was funny she hadn't really acknowledged her own life until she faced death, once on the finalizer and now alone in a cell on a planet filled with nothing but scrap and sand.

Ciena ran her woolen tongue over the bloody cracks and valleys of her lips and wished that she had died with the finalizer. Kneeling on the floor in front of the force field which had kept her in her cell for the past year, she felt her strength give out and fell upon the shimmering forcefield separating her from the now sandrift strewn hangar, and pressed her hand against it. She remembered the one time when Thane had visited her, how he had pressed his hand to meet hers and the barrier had hummed with the heat of their two hands connecting. She had wanted so badly to push through the barrier and feel his hand in hers, to connect with him once more.

Her lips were cracked and bleeding, and the dryness in her throat was making even breathing painful. Her tongue felt like the thick wool of her prisoners shift, even her nail beds had begun to bleed. In the distant part of herself that still held her academy knowledge Ciena knew that these were signs that the end was near. She welcomed it, anything to end this pain and give her some relief. It was different this time, on the finalizer she had only had a few minutes to face her death and even knowing what she planned on doing it still was inconceivable that a ship as large as the Inflictor could actually be pulled down from its orbit. By the time she had finished the duties necessary to ensure the demise of the ship she had only had a few seconds to contemplate her own mortality before Thane had come, determined to keep her alive. Now she had had hours to contemplate her end, as she slowly accepted that the rebels were not returning, and no one was here to save her.

She would see Wynnet and finally tell her sister how wonderfully terrible it was to live. She would tell her of the Empire, and the Resistance. She would speak of Thane Kyrene and Nash Windrider, she would tell her sister about being in love with someone and grieving friends, she would describe the difference between the haunting grief she felt for an entire world and the drowning grief she felt for her Jude. She would tell Wynnet of how her honor was her greatest strength, the only compass she had in a galaxy where there were too many stories of pain and death and destruction to know any right from wrong. She would tell her of how her honor took her decisions from her and made her question herself more deeply than any of her actions did. Ciena was ready to die.

She rested her forehead next to her hand on the forcefield, the hum grew louder, and she idly wondered if it was meant to hold for an extended period. Her vision swam and darkened as if night had fallen despite the warm breeze from the noon Jakkun sun outside the hangar. The hum grew even louder as she leaned more of her weight against the forcefield, she couldn't even hold herself up she was so weak. Her head dropped down, and she felt herself slip down, the cool floor was sandy where her cheek rested on it, and she moved her hand up to draw circles in the small drift of sand that had accumulated on the edge of her forcefield. It felt so good to lay down, to rest her head on the ground after so long pressed against the tight wrongness of the forcefield.

Ciena stopped the rhythmic circles she had been making with her blood lined fingernails, and brought her fingers close to her face. Sand, something was important about the sand, but what? The hum had continued to grow in volume, and suddenly it was deafening.

The forcefield.

Ciena shot up, a bolt of adrenaline she thought had left her with the last of her hope at escape shooting through her. The sand was at her fingers, she had slid down after the forcefield had given out. She was free, she was going to live.

. . .

Star Destroyers were never meant to sit on a planet. They were assembled in space, their structures surprisingly fragile when subjugated to the full gravity of a planet's surface. That made their wrecks too difficult for the Empire to salvage more than the most valuable of components, and after the battle of Jakku the remaining empire. Forces had been too scattered to organize any sort of recovery.

A Planet like Jakku had been all but ignored by galactic commerce hubs since the time of the old Republic. But wherever a star destroyer fell, civilization would follow. There were billions of credits of parts that could be salvaged, but the work was hard and dangerous, and if you had any self preservation instinct you would stay far from the slowly decaying carcasses of the Empire's greatest weapons.

Ciena had left the hangar after a full Jakkun day—which was slightly longer than the Empire's standard cycle—spent drinking water and trying to gather strength. She was greeted by the site of hundreds of shacks and temporary shelters, small cargo ships and light craft for personal use where before there had only been the unending sand.

Ciena had hardly recognized the landscape outside of the hangar that had been her prison for nearly a year when she first walked out. An entire outpost had cropped up, probably due to the rebellions constant need for supplies. She didn't remember much from when she was brought to the Hangar, she was still shell shocked from being saved by Thane and then taken into custody, and the endless sand had been all around the solitary transport which I had been her initial prison. After a few days the hangar had been erected to stand as an outpost, but nothing to the effect of the shantee city she saw now.

Now Ciena dragged her wares from the Inflictor back to the small city of stragglers, and pondered how far she had fallen. The hanger where she had been prisoner had been picked clean for parts, and she had quickly realized that the only thing which had prevented her from dying of thirst in her cell was a raider who had heard over the holonet that the squadron posted at this outpost would not be returning. Seeing the opportunity he had taken the power cell and the most valuable ships and run. She supposed she could have attempted to make contact with the Empire, but besides the scrap from the Inflictor there wasn't a single Imperial seal to be seen on Jakku. It was as if the Empire had retreated overnight, and left even the worlds which had been most reliant on its order to fend for themselves. Predictably the planet had been overrun by smugglers and scrappers within the short year Ciena had been imprisoned.

So instead Ciena had dragged herself to the Inflictor, and picked the feathers from the carrion that her ship had become. Initially she was too weak to salvage the most valuable parts, and she didn't believe they had been reached by the other scavengers yet, few of them even knew the difference between a fuel cell and a lightbulb. The wreck was still collapsing in places, the structure was still unstable even after a year of its slow descent into Jakkun sand.

Her wound still ached, and it had taken her weeks to rebuild the stamina and physical strength she had possessed before a year was spent with nothing but holonovels and a square cell to move about. She had found a crashed transport close the Inflictor, and although it meant being farther from the temporary town and the junk smugglers who had taken to trading food portions instead of credits for the parts collected Ciena preferred the solitude. Her knowledge of the ship allowed her to find its hidden stores of rations and life support supplies, specifically designed so only Imperial officers could access them in the event of landing in a hostile territory. So she had spent the last few weeks regaining her strength from the nutritives and watching the Jakkun sun as it reflected on the Inflictor. She had run through the nutritives faster than expected, primarily because she had used a large amount of them to trade for a small speeder, which she could use to travel to and from the shantee city. Already the sun had returned her skin to its warm deep tone, one she hadn't seen in the years she had spent in space.

Today though she would be forced to the enter the town, she needed supplies beyond survival gear, and although the transport had a few mass produced clothing items for imperial officers, she didn't think it was a good idea to walk around in anything resembling a uniform. It had been weeks since the resistance left, but she had been a Captain, her face known to hundreds of thousands of Imperial soldiers. She had realized she didn't want the Empire realizing she was alive and well... free.

She had cut her hair shorter so that it could not be tied into a braid, and she often pulled a sand wrapping around her face, even on clear days to try and disguise her face.

"You know the real valuable parts come from inside the ships" the Junk trader said, he was a new one and Ciena had thought she would at least run her wares by him to see if he was any less of a crook than the others. They seemed to be cutting the value of external parts drastically, probably in an attempt to force more scavengers to venture into the interior of the ship, where more valuable components were probably still intact. "If you manage to get into say," the Crolute paused, he seemed to peer at her face a little closer "the aft A deck, subsection 3?"

Ciena's head shot up. The Crolute sneered.

"I knew it" he muttered and lunged across the table dividing them and grabbed Ciena's upper arm "Defector! I've caught one"

It was a then that she heard that sound, one that filled her daydreams and plagued her nightmares—the low scream of a TIE engines powering up.

Ciena reached into the loose robes she wore to keep herself cool in the sand and pulled out a blaster, one she always kept close, just in case she had told herself, she never wanted to wield the weapon again. The Crolute tried to grab her arm and she fired instinctively, ,her blaster scraping through his overflowing flesh. His grip released her, and she turned jumping onto her speeder, only to be stunned.

"Aaghet" her voice cracked. She realized how long it had been since she had spoken, all those weeks in the dunes by the inflictor, and she had never bothered so much as to say a word to the other scavengers. Her voice was raw, and hardly recognizable even to herself. She lay in the sand on her back, the wind gone from her lungs. She still heard the TIE and for the first time since she had escaped death at the resistance hangar, she felt the old tug of her honor on her soul.

Deserter. Coward. Traitor.

She had escaped the resistance, but she had not returned. She would be tortured, executed, her family on Jelucan would likely face reparations, she didn't think the New Republic had liberated them yet. She stared at the endless blue Jakkun sky, and thought that this would likely be the last time she was ever outside of a ship. The last time she felt that thrum of life she always sensed when on a planet, she was going back to the cold shell her life had been in space. It was only now that she realized her honor had kept so much life from her, she had been throughout most of the galaxy but only stood on the surface of a handful of planets.

A figure wearing the black armor of elite flight stood above her, and for a moment she remembered seeing Thane on their graduation from the Academy, how handsome he had been even then in his uniform. She had never liked the orange and white of his rebel fatigues, the dark

The figure reached down, removing his helmet so and placing it on his knee.

"Ciena?"

Nash Windrider had found her.


	2. Chapter 2

Try as Ciena might, she had a hard time recalling how exactly she had gone from flat on her back in the sand to a med cot aboard what had to be one of the last remaining imperial battle cruisers. She couldn't decide what felt more like a dream, Nash Windrider carefully carrying her into the jump seat of a TIE, or the 2 years of captivity and survival on Jakku. She was back in a med bay, so similar to the one where she had spent months in and out of Bacta treatments.

"Nash" her voice came out so quiet under the hum of the ship she didn't think the figure slumped in the chair beside her cot had even heard her. She had forgotten the how loud the dull hum of engines aboard a starship created.

Nash's Alderaanian braids still kept his hair swept back from his face. The long lines of his body seemed even leaner now, his cheekbones more prominent on his. His hands gripped the arms of his seat even in sleep as his jaw clenched and unclenched.

She knew those dreams. TIE fighters didn't survive the war through good fortune. They killed, or they died.

"Wake up Nash" It felt like yelling after so long spent living I with only the ghosts and dunes as company.

She placed her hand on his bicep and squeezed lightly. His eyes opened and he drew a deep breath, bewilderment passing over his features as he took her in on the Med cot.

The not-silent-silence stretched.

"Sometimes I forget what happened" he says, his words coming out in a rush "I strap in to my TIE, and I expect to look out and see the Hangar of the Inflictor or even sometimes the Death Star. Its as if for a minute I have managed to forget it."

"Forget what?" She asks, even though she already knows what his answer will be. She would forget too, in those moments in her cell with the Rebels, before she felt the dry air on her skin or heard the chatter of their untrained militia and expect to wake up on the Inflictor once more.

"Endor. The Death Star. Jakku." His eyes meet hers "Sometimes I even forget enlisting, and I expect to wake up on Coruscant in our old dorm"

She sucks in a breath, the thought physically painful. Jude's death, Thane's betrayal. They are old wounds that she thought had healed over in her year in the sands, but hearing them from Nash hurts.

"Thank goodness you didn't reveal yourself on Jakku, its still contested by the rebel alliance and trying to make contact could have revealed yourself." Nash Windrider continues, effectively changing the subject as medbot rolled in. Fluids were being administered for dehydration, but what else did they expect after they had picked her up on a desert planet?

"Where is ISB Nash?" She asks. Usually the Empire's internal affairs thugs would prevent visits from other officers until she had been debriefed, although she wouldn't be surprised if they executed her on site for desertion after discovering that she had been living in freedom on Jakku.

Nash clenches his jaw, and reaches up to hold her hand loosely, as if he is is making sure the touch is ok. When she doesn't pull away he tightens his grip "Ciena the Empire isn't what it is. Maker, I don't know if we are even calling ourselves the Empire anymore. There is no ISB,we don't have the numbers"

He looks around, but the med bay is deserted, even the droid attending her has powered down.

"I was going to leave Ciena" His other hand comes up to grab hers as well and he leans his lengthy frame over, so close she can see the reflection of her med cot's lights in his eyes. "I went to Jakku to sell my TIE for as many credits as possible to one of those junk traders. The fleet doesn't have the resources to track anyone down anymore, they barely have enough officers to keep the remaining ships spacebound. I went to Jakku to leave"

Guilt. That is the emotion Ciena sees in the clenching of his jaw, the desperation she feels in the grasp of his hands, which are very nearly cutting off the circulation in hers with the strength of his grip.

"Why didn't you leave Nash?" She says, although her mind is somewhere far away. Nash Windrider, who watched the Alderaan burn from the Death Star, who piloted a TIE through Endor and Jakku was going to leave the Empire he gave everything to for the past 13 years of his life is now sitting with her in the Med Bay of one of the few remaining ships.

"I found you"

...

"Captain Ree, it is very unusual that we have the honor of bestowing award to someone in person these days" Moff Gorgon said as he pinned the multicolored emblem on the lapel of a uniform Ciena thought she would never see, much less wear again. "That you have come back to us after such an ordeal is nothing short of a miracle."

Her eyes flicked up at that, a small trickle of apprehension raising the hairs on her arms—to long has she been in Imperial service to take a compliment without questioning the motive first. But the Moff looked as if he were genuine, and many of the good commands were lost.

"I have had an unusual request in fact, Commander Windrider has asked that your assignment fall to the Garrote which is his current posting. " the Moff frowns at this, he is unused to being asked for anything given his position "I understand he found you on Jakku while investigating the reports that a Rebel Base still existed there"

The Moff choosing to refer the New Republic outpost as a Rebel Base doesn't surprise Ciena, she herself had done the same while she was in their custody. Now the term Rebel doesn't seem to fit, like calling one of the Jakkun Lionesses a kitten. "That is correct, Sir"

"There are few postings in Command on ships these days" the Moff pauses to turn around, the bridge is at attention but he releases the officers present to resume their duty with a wave of his hand as he walks to the view screen. "The Imperial fleet has been decimated, and what I need is your presence on the ground"

"I assure you I will assist the fleet in any way I can from my assignment, sir" Ciena says, asa relief floods through her. She had forgotten how space had drained her, Jakku was no rainforest, but she had grown accustomed to the hum of life that surrounded her even there in the sand. Ciena had found her return to life on a starship almost physically painful, as if a limb she didn't know she had was suddenly removed.

The Moff frowned slightly, "The Fleet is almost no more, until we can find a suitable planet to reestablish and create secure docking facilities we can't hope to rebuild. We need allies Captain Ree, and I need people capable of finding them discreetly"

"Of course, I will do whatever I can to ensure the Empire returns order to the Galaxy" Ciena responded. What was the Moff getting at?

"Order is exactly what we need Captain Ree, but we will never be what the Empire once was. I have heard the chatter that Admiral Rax had no intention of winning the battle of Jakku, that he was counsel to the Emperor and was the leader of Palpatine's contingency plan."

A cold sweat trickled down Ciena's back *Moff Garson is talking about treason**. She cast a glance to the other officers on the bridge. Would they report her? However all seemed to go about their duties as if the Moff was speaking about nothing more interesting than the space conditions.

"You have proven yourself resourceful Ree. You managed to survive a year in custody of the Rebel Alliance without betraying the Empire, and another year surviving" he pauses as if unsure of how to describe her time spent AWOL as a scavenger "surviving life in Jakku. If you can hide your identity as a Rebel Fugitive and Imperial Captain there couldn't you do so somewhere else, perhaps while finding the allies we need?"

Its a slippery slope, that question. A threat presented as an opportunity, this Moff has survived the infighting of the past years for a reason.

"I will serve as you see fit, Moff Gargon" careful words, a dip of the head. Ciena's oath was to the empire, but now she is before a Moff serving a military state with no commanding officer.

He looks her over, as she gazes at the endless space of the unknown regions before her in the view screen. "You will go to Dothomir, to seek allies from the Force users who reside there. They may not help us openly, but they will know where we can begin our search. Commander Windrider will accompany you. Take a ship that can't be traced to the Remnant, no TIEs or cruisers."

He turns back to the view screen. It occurs to Ciena that he has not referred to himself as part of the Empire once.

"Dismissed"

...

Nash Windrider is standing before a Corellian Light Freighter class vessel in the main hangar of the Garrote when Ciena finds him. His hair is no longer braided, but cut short. His voice booms over the squadron before him, all rushing to prepare a ship as unfamiliar to them as an X Wing.

"I see you were informed before me of our new assignment" Ciena says as she walks up beside him. She moves to grab a ship kit but he places a calloused hand on her arm.

"I think that since time is of the essence we should discuss the mission particulars once we depart in the Centurion Wing" Nash's hand is still resting on her arm, and his fingers squeeze gently. She follows his gaze as he tilts his head to the slight droid waiting beside them.

"Of course," she adds "I only meant to decide who would be responsible for flying this ship, it has been too long since I piloted light craft"

Ciena thinks of Endor. Even though it ended in her injuries, and meant the end of the institution she had sworn an oath to uphold she can't help but miss the feel of a TIE beneath her. It was the last time she had felt conviction about her place in the world. The last time she felt she could make a difference herself, even if it was only in protecting a few Pilots.

Nash is still side eying some droids, but a smile creeps up on his features. It isn't joyous, but a feral thing of ground teeth and sharp incisors. "It would be an honor to co-pilot for the best of Jelucan"

Ciena winces, and Nash grabs both her arms, gently turning her so they are face to face. The old captain that she locked away inside herself reminds her that she is still in the hangar of the Garrote and surrounded by subordinates, but the thought of Jelucan paralyzes Ciena on the spot.

She accepted long ago that her parents would think she had died on Jakku, and would probably never know she had survived the crash of the Inflictor. She didn't know if Jelucan still remained loyal to the Empire or had joined the new coalition of planets rising from the Rebel Alliance. She wasn't privy to news as a prisoner, and it was even more difficult to come by as a scavenger, But the mention of her home planet has her legs going week, vision tunneling as Nash's hold on her arms become the only thing keeping her upright.

His arms envelope her, and she buries her face in the coarse black material of his uniform "I know" he whispers too low for the stormtroopers and pilots swarming around them to hear. "It will always be with you Ciena, even if its gone now"

"I'm sorry Nash" Ciena says, unsure if he can even hear her as she is now speaking directly into his chest, her hands balled up tightly in his uniform. "I should be happy just to have a planet. Its fine"

She pushes herself upright and straightens the sleeves of her jacket. One deep breath, she is still a Captain, as far as she knows, and she needs to remain composed while on the Hangar deck. "I am sorry for my lapse in composure Commander Windrider, it won't happen again" Its so much easier to fall back to her training, on the formal tones of command. She did not break when piloting her Star Destroyer towards what should have been certain death. She will not allow the past to haunt her any longer.

"I am not the only one who has lost their home" Nash says, he tucks the hands that had just held her upright into his pockets, and walks up the ramp of the Centurion Wing.


End file.
